Started with Errors (Relative Industries Series Book 2)

by Joanna Beaumont

  Beth lifted her chin and pursed her lips for a kiss. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Howard planted a kiss on her. “I’m not letting you go without me.”

  “You can’t come. I don’t want you to get into trouble,” Beth said.

  “I’m not five, and you’re my wife!”

  She smiled. Although married for years, it still made her tingle when he called her that. She hoped they would have their own child one day.

  They followed the remaining people into time adjustment, took seats next to each other and pulled down their harnesses.

  “Have you got the shocker?” Callum whispered.

  Beth nodded, double tapping the striped fabric bag strapped across her body.

  Time adjustment started, and the announcement startled her. She’d hardly recognised herself in the mirror that morning. The woman staring back at her seemed angrier and crazier than she’d ever been before—even when she’d tested at ImReal.

  She hoped Alex hadn’t taken their embryos. She couldn’t bear the thought of her children raised on an alien planet without her.

  “Are you okay?” Howard asked.

  “Stressed out.”

  She dared not mention her concerns about their embryos to him. It was her idea to freeze them. Everything she was involved in turned to shit. What if Alex had taken them? Howard might never forgive her. She grabbed hold of the harness and stared at the ceiling.

  “You need to be careful. You might zap yourself with that thing,” Howard said.

  Time adjustment ended.

  Beth wanted to check to see if her embryos were still inside the Deceleration Zone. She wouldn’t take anyone else’s word for it. “I say we head straight to the Deceleration Zone. I don’t want to accidentally bump into Meda or Alex.”

  Callum and Howard nodded. They lifted their harnesses and boarded the waiting bus.

  After disembarking at the South point they approached the first vehicle in a line of three and climbed inside.

  Beth hit the DZ button on the dashboard. The vehicle set off, and soon they were heading down the glass tunnel towards the Deceleration Zone. Beth and Howard exchanged nervous glances. He had to know she was worried about their embryos, but some things didn’t need saying.

  The car stopped at double doors in front of the domed building.

  They got out and she leaned back inside the vehicle and hit the home button on the dashboard. The car set off back down the tunnel.

  Through the double doors at the end of the tunnel there was a small entry room with a locked door inside. Beth peered through the locked door. A long hallway led past several rooms. Her embryos would be inside one of those rooms. What if Alex had taken them? On the brink of finding her future lost her dread deepened.

  Callum slid the stolen pass through the pin pad at the side of the locked door. He gawped at it while it flashed red. “I don’t know the code.”

  Beth glared at him. He was serious. What an idiot. She needed to know if her embryos were still in there. She fumbled inside her bag and removed the stun gun.

  “What are you doing?” Howard asked.

  “Disabling the electronics.”

  She shot at the pin pad with the stun gun. After a few seconds, bright orange lights flashed and a piercing alarm blared inside the entry room.

  “Shit.” She punched her finger on the pin pad, entering random numbers. The deafening alarm wouldn’t shut up.

  Howard was keeping watch at the doors leading back to the tunnel. “The guards are coming!”

  Beth strode to Howard’s side. Amber lights flashed on top of the guard’s vehicle. Shit. It was approaching fast. She hoped Clayton was on duty.

  Howard and Callum dropped down out of sight and sat on the floor.

  Beth stayed still and continued watching the vehicle. “I’ll have to shag him.”

  Howard grabbed her arm and tugged her. “You’re getting crazy.”

  “I’m joking…He might be okay just feeling my tits.”

  The vehicle stopped, and the security guard climbed out of the car.

  Beth dropped to the floor. “Callum, you’ll have to do it. It’s a woman, and she’s pissed off.”

  Callum’s face had turned pale. He exhaled. “Okay.” He stood and pushed the doors open into the tunnel.

  Beth and Howard bottom-shuffled away from the doorway while straining to hear their muffled conversation.

  “Sorry, I forgot my code to get in,” Callum said.

  “I’ll have to deactivate the alarm now.” The doors flung open into the entry room.

  Callum followed the guard in and held the door open, concealing Beth and Howard hiding behind it.

  Beth held her breath and braved a look at the guard. She wore the standard issue RI uniform: navy blue trousers, T-shirt and baseball cap. Her dark hair trailed down the middle of her back in a ponytail. She was entering a sequence of numbers on the pin pad. Callum noticed Beth and with clenched teeth and wide-eyes urged her to get back behind the door.

  Beth retreated. She showed Howard the stun gun, then pointed it in the guard’s direction, making a jabbing movement with it. Should I try stunning her? Howard shook his head vehemently.

  “Where’s your pass?” the guard asked.

  After a few moments of silence she spoke again. “You’ll have to come with me. Security will want to question you and perform a body search.”

  Their footsteps sounded towards the door then out through it.

  “A body search?” Callum asked.

  “Clothing, shoes and cavity.”

  The door creaked as it closed, dulling the sound of Howard’s laughter. Beth elbowed him in the ribs, and he clamped a hand over his mouth.

  “Believe me, it’s not funny. Just you in there?” the guard asked Callum.

  Beth and Howard’s eyes locked.

  “Yes, just me,” Callum said.

  The door clunked shut.

  Beth and Howard stayed quiet until they were sure they had left.

  Beth whispered, “Now what?”

  “I’ll go back inside Zone 12 and get a pass from someone in the lab. And the code. I should have done it before,” he whispered.

  Beth wrapped her arms around him. “You’ll be away five days. We could ask Meda about Lana.”

  “No! Don’t ask her. She must know what’s going on.”

  “How do you know?”

  “How could she not know? She’s the CTO.”

  Howard stood and offered his hand to Beth. Beth took it, and he pulled her up. She walked to the bench and slumped down on it, shoulders hunched forward.

  She stared at her feet. “It’s five days. Anything could happen to you in Zone 12. You won’t be able to message me if something goes wrong. Neither of us have a Zone 0 phone. What if you come across Damian?”

  He sat next to her. “Do you want to forget about Lana or Alex stealing the embryos?”

  “Of course not.”

  He hugged and kissed her. “I won’t be long. Wait here.”

  He left. Beth lay on the bench and stared at the ceiling, gripping the stun gun inside her bag. Damian had better not cause Howard any problems. What if he couldn’t get the pass? It seemed a little excessive to cavity search Callum. But if the guard knew he’d lied about having access? Would they use rubber gloves?

  It was 11:58 a.m. Howard would miss the 12:00 time adjustment, but he should catch the 12:20. That meant he wouldn’t be back until 12:40 p.m. She’d have to wait forty minutes before he returned.

  She hadn’t wanted him to go. If Alex had stolen their embryos, she might lose Howard forever. Howard normally took things in his stride, but she didn’t know how he’d react if Alex had taken their future daughters and sons. It was hard to believe she’d only known him for two weeks in Zone 0 time. After starting work inside Zone 12 they’d met within days and married the next year on the island just one day after Beth arrived.

  Beth thought about Cait. Cait would never marry Jason. She’d be home now
and living with Jason’s family in the UK, preparing for the birth of her child. Beth was still in shock at her news. She’d assumed Cait was a post-thirty-five. Before coming to the island they’d worked together at RI-UK. When management told them ImReal wanted to set up a branch inside Relative Industries on a tropical island in the South Atlantic Ocean with white sandy beaches and the ocean teeming with marine life, they didn’t need persuading. The three of them jumped at the chance to escape the New Cities. But not everyone in the company wanted to go, and management promoted Beth to team leader. Beth had always assumed she’d got the job because she was older than Cait.

  Beth noticed a piece of yellow folded-up paper on the floor and sat up.

  Callum had yellow paper in his hand back inside Zone 12. She’d wondered what was written on it. Did he turn out his pockets when the guard said body search? She picked it up. It was a handwritten list of ten names and five New City addresses, and from the messy handwriting she concluded scrawled in a hurry. She folded it up and placed it inside her bag.

  Moments later, the locked door to the domed Deceleration Zone clicked open.

  With her hand inside her bag, clutching the stun gun, she watched the door open.

  She stepped back as a tall, meshed cage rolled in, the type that moved boxes around inside a warehouse. Wooden crates were stacked on top of each other inside it.

  A head craned around the cage. “Beth, what are you doing here?”

  “Alex? I’m looking for Lana.”

  “Lana is inside looking at some documents.”

  He dragged a hand through his thick hair. He was genuinely surprised by her presence. Guilty, even. She guessed she’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t be. She didn’t need to ask what was inside the crates. Alex would lie about what was in them anyway. She was certain it was human embryos—possibly her embryos. Security needed to come and search the crates.

  “I want to see Lana.”

  “Lana is busy. So am I. Can you move out of the way?”

  Beth whipped the stun gun out from her bag. Her hands shook and so did her aim on Alex. She wanted him to contact security. She didn’t trust him.

  “Show me where Lana is.” She edged closer, and then circled behind him and stepped back through the doorway. “Bring the crates back inside.”

  “Calm down, Beth.”

  Alex pulled the cage back inside the DZ building towards her. She stepped backwards, mirroring his movements. The doors snapped shut in front of them, sealing them inside the Deceleration Zone.

  “Take me to Lana.”

  Alex turned to her, the crates behind him. “Put the gun down.”

  “No way! Take me to Lana.” She waved the stun gun at him. “Go!”

  Jerking her head between him and each door they passed by, she followed him along the hallway. The stun gun’s aim never moved from his back. He would never call security. He wouldn’t want them to know he was stealing embryos.

  In the middle of the walkway she noticed a faint red glow behind a door and stopped still.

  “Don’t move!”

  A few metres ahead of her, Alex halted.

  She side-stepped to the door. Was there a mannequin inside a deceleration pod?

  Beth squinted. Was that Amy? Frozen in time, open mouthed and scared stiff.

  “Who’s that in there?” she shouted at Alex.

  Alex tracked towards Beth. She backed away from the door, and he looked through it.

  “Is that Amy Williams?” she asked.

  “Could be. Was she causing Meda a problem?”

  “Meda?” Why would Meda put Amy in a deceleration pod? “Get her out now!”

  He turned the door handle and pushed the door wide open.

  “Go inside,” Beth told him.

  She followed him in, keeping a steady distance behind. Rows upon rows of man-sized deceleration pods were empty and dark except the one with the stiff woman inside.

  “Go on,” she told him.

  As she neared the pod, she was sure it was Amy.

  The control panel on her pod glowed with red numbers: minus three, six, zero.

  “Get her out now!”

  Amy’s eyes were wide open and terrified. Her palms were spread flat on the transparent pod window. She had desperately fought to escape before she was frozen in time.

  “How long has she been in the pod?” She should’ve been able to work it out herself, but she was in panic mode and couldn’t divide by 360 in her head anyway.

  “How many Zone 0 days has she been missing?”

  Damian had told her exactly how long. “Nine days.”

  “Inside a deceleration pod that’s about thirty-six minutes,” Alex said.

  Alex pressed the number three on the control panel. A beep sounded. The numbers changed from minus three, six, zero to a single three. When the three continued to blink she guessed the control panel expected more numbers.

  He pressed six…beep, zero…beep, zero…beep, zero…beep, zero…beep.

  He hesitated and glanced at her, as if a second thought went through his head. Then he pressed enter…beep.

  Now on the control panel, three, six, zero, zero, zero, zero and no minus sign.

  That was a heck of a lot of zeros, but she had no idea how to use the deceleration pods.

  Amy’s frozen posture slowly unfroze, moving in real-time now, moving normally.

  She smiled at Beth, a relieved smile that screamed thank god! Beth smiled at her. Why would Meda put Amy in a pod? Meda said she’d gone home to the UK.

  In the next moment Amy’s expression had turned to sheer terror. Mouthing, Let me out, let me out! Amy banged on the pod. Her fists drummed faster and faster. The time between drums grew shorter and shorter. The individual beats became indistinguishable. And then Amy blurred just as the babies had blurred inside Callum’s growing pods.

  “What have you done, Alex?”

  “My mistake. I should have entered zero.”

  All time is relative to zero—Zone 0.

  “Put a zero on it now!” Beth screamed at him.

  On the control panel, he pressed zero…beep then enter…beep.

  Beth stared at the pod. She felt her legs soften.

  The panel light glowed green—green for ready—green for go.

  The door lock clicked. Beth peered inside and gasped. Amy was slumped against the wall. Her head lolled lifelessly to the side. The skin on her face and arms had slipped from her swollen body like sheets of thin rice paper. Bright purple nails had dropped from her fingers and teeth from her jaw. Her body had already decayed and putrefied, and her guts were turned inside out.

  “How long was she in there for?”

  Alex cocked his head to the side, working it out. “About twenty days.”

  Three minutes without air—three days without water—three weeks without food.

  Amy had been starved of food and water.

  Beth stepped back from him. “You’ve killed her!”

  Beth pulled the trigger on the stun gun. It wouldn’t fire. She pressed it again. It was as dead as Amy was.

  She slammed the stun gun hard at Alex’s head. It hit him between the eyes. His hand reached for his face, and she ran towards the door.

  At the door, she risked a look over her shoulder. He was rubbing the blood from the gash on his nose between his fingers.

  She sprinted along the corridor towards the exit and pushed the cage away from the door. She yanked the door handle and banged on the window, screaming to be let out.

  Footsteps approached behind her.

  “I’m a reasonable man, Beth. I won’t do the same to Lana if you help me out.”

  “Fuck you. I’m not doing anything for you.” She turned back to the door and banged on it again.

  Then she heard his departing footsteps. Where was he going?

  Was he striding away on another kill mission?

  Lana.

  “Wait! Stop. Okay. I’ll help you.”

  He stopped an
d turned around.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  He stepped towards her. “Help me move a few crates.”

  “The human embryos?”

  Alex smiled. “Yes, they’re waiting for them.”

  “Who?”

  “My crew.”

  “You want me to choose between Lana and the embryos?”

  “No, I’m taking the embryos whatever. Help me, she lives. Don’t help me, she dies.”

  “What will you do with the embryos?” Beth asked.

  “I haven’t got time for this. Did you not hear me? I said they’re waiting.”

  She glanced at the red fire extinguisher on the wall.

  “If you attack me, you’d better make sure I’m dead or Lana will die the same way Amy just did.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alex kicked a wedge beneath the door to the entry room.

  If he said ladies first, she might attack him. Her embryos might be inside these crates he was forcing her to push towards another planet. She took deep breaths. She needed to calm down for Lana’s sake. Poor Amy. Dead at the hands of a sick twisted bastard. He knew exactly what he was doing. She couldn’t let that happen to Lana.

  “Bring the crates in,” Alex said.

  She gritted her teeth, gave the trolley a shove and pushed it. Oscillating her weight between its left and right sides, she tried to keep it straight. As much as she wanted to ram the frame into him, she couldn’t be responsible for killing Lana. Obediently passing him, she glanced at her watch. Howard wouldn’t be back yet. This could end badly if he arrived now. She hoped he didn’t.

  She waited behind the doors that led into the Zone 0 tunnel. Alex opened the door and she pushed the crates through. Desperate to catch a glimpse of someone, anyone other than Howard, coming from Zone 0, she looked around the crates and scrutinised the length of tunnel. Nobody was coming.

  She continued pushing. The trolley was obstreperous as the children would be when they found out they were stolen from Earth as embryos. The first true interplanetary migrants with a grievance against society worse than her own, and a new terrorist organisation in the making. Good luck with that, Alex.